Category Archives: Economic collapse

The original trend (green line) is fairly flat. Something happens around A.D. 1971 to cause the second trend line (blue) to accelerate upwards. That change in trend “velocity” marks the “Hockey-Stick Moment” where something unexpected and powerful suddenly took place. In this example, President Nixon severed gold’s relationship to the dollar.

GATA love it

According to the “About” page at Gold Anti-Trust Action committee’s website (www.gata.org),

“The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee [GATA] was organized in the fall of 1998 to expose, oppose, and litigate against collusion to control the price and supply of gold and related financial instruments. The committee arose from essays by Bill Murphy, a financial commentator on the Internet (LeMetropoleCafe.com), and by Chris Powell, a newspaper editor in Connecticut.

Imagine that! GATA—and all that flows from it—started from just couple of “essays”.

ZeroHedge published an article entitled, “Now The Pain Begins: S&P, Moodys Cut Illinois To Near Junk, Lowest Ever Rating For A U.S. State.” The article dealt with Illinois’ growing financial problems.

Excerpts:

“Today, in the span of a few hours, two credit-rating agencies (first S&P, then Moody’s) downgraded Illinois bondsto BB+ andBaa3, respectively—both just one notch above junk, the lowest rating ever given to a U.S. state. Both agencies cited Illinois’ long-running political stalemate over a state budget as showing no signs of ending.

“S&P warned that Illinois is at risk of soon losing its investment-grade status, an unprecedented stepfor a state that would only deepen the government’s strain. Bypassing its traditional 90-day review, S&P said Illinois will likely be downgraded around July 1, when the new fiscal year begins,if leaders haven’t agreed on a budget that starts addressing the state’s chronic deficits.

Michael Snyder (Economic Collapse Blog) is an intelligent, prolific author of articles concerning the U.S. and global economies. He’s not optimistic. As you can tell from the name of his blog, he’s expecting an economic collapse. He recently published an article entitled “Global Debt Bomb Ready To Explode – $21,714 For Every Man, Woman And Child”. That article got me thinking; agreeing in part, but also disagreeing—or at least quibbling. What follows are excerpts from that article and my comments:

“According to the International Monetary Fund, global debt has grown to a staggering grand total of 152 trillion dollars. Other estimates put that figure closer to 200 trillion dollars.”

Note that some persons including the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and economist Laurence Kotlikoff think that, including unfunded liabilities, the U.S. government’s real National Debt (claimed to be “just” $20 trillion) may actually be over $200 trillion. Thus, if the $20 trillion National Debt of the U.S. is understated by $180 trillion, then the global debt estimate of $152 trillion referenced by Michael Snyder should also be understated by (at least) $180 trillion. If so, the real, total global debt could be at least $330 trillion.

In the first three “Parts” of this article (#1 More Debt, #2 Ponzi Schemes, & #3 Fractional Reserve Banking), I explored and advanced an hypothesis concerning America’s National Debt. I argued that our National Debt isn’t growing due to accident or governmental incompetence. Instead, I argued that that our seemingly uncontrollable National Debt (it nearly doubled under the Obama administration) grows out of a mathematical necessity that’s somehow caused by our Debt-Based Monetary System (DBMS).

In essence, I believe that our DBMS forces our National Debt to grow as a necessity and requirement. The the DBMS will die if it’s not constantly fed an growing stream of debt. If the DBMS dies, it will kill our debt-based economy.

More, I suspect that the debt must not only grow, but must grow “geometrically” or, at least, itmust grow faster than the economy. If that’s true, it’s the the kiss of death for the DBMS and our debt-based economy.

Our DBMS (Debt-Based Monetary System) doesn’t simply make more debt possible, it makes more debt necessary. If we fail or refuse to go deeper into debt, our DBMS and economy will collapse into chaos.

If my hypothesis is roughly correct, it means that any promise by the Republican Party or President Trump to eliminate deficit spending and/or reduce the National Debt from $20 trillion to, say, $19 trillion—is not only false, but potentially dangerous. If they succeed in significantly reducing the National Debt, I believe that reduction could cause our debt-based economy to collapse.

Recently, in Part I of this series, I promised that in Part II, I’d explain “why” the survival of our debt-based monetary system (DBMS) depends on the creation of ever more debt. I argued that our massive National Debt is not an accident or evidence of political malfeasance, but rather an intentional and necessary consequence of accepting our debt-based monetary system (DBMS). I argued that our DBMS can’t survive without going ever deeper into debt.

I compared “payments” (which are tangible, real assets like gold or silver coins) to “promises to pay” (which are intangible, paper debt-instruments like paper dollars). I warned that, given the choice between receiving a tangible “payment” and an intangible “promise to pay,” only a fool would take the paper “promises to pay”.

I illustrated my argument about “promises to pay” by reminding readers of how many times they had made or received promises that had failed. My point was that promises are easily made and routinely broken.

So, I suppose it should come as no surprise that my promise to use this week’s article to explain the “why” behind the debt-based monetary scheme will also be broken. I began to write this second article with some background on “Ponzi Schemes” (which is how I and others frequently describe our DBMS). But, when I looked into “Ponzi Schemes,” I discovered that maybe that’s not the most accurate way to describe our DBMS. I also realized that maybe I should try to discern and describe the nature of our DBMS before I got into the “why”.

Result? Here, in Part II of this series of articles we’re going to explore whether our DBMS is really a “Ponzi Scheme” or if it’s something else. Then, in Part III (coming soon) I’ll present my notions concerning the fundamental “why”.

Jim Cramer is a former hedge fund manager and best-selling author. He’s the host of CNBC’s Mad Money TV show and a co-founder of TheStreet, Inc.

According to CNBC, with oil prices on the rise, Cramer recently used technician Carolyn Boroden’s charts to try to determine,

“[W]hether the uptick in crude oil prices is just a one-off [an aberration or anomaly] or if it’s time to get bullish.”

Note that when it comes to investing in crude oil, Cramer apparently sees just two choices:

1) Stand pat since the rising price is a “one-off” and nothing major is really happening; or,

2) Jump in with both feet since the oil market is really changing to become significantly bullish.

However, there’s a third possibility that Cramer has ignored but others who invest in crude oil should consider: while crude oil’s near-term price is volatile and might go up or down, crude oil’smid- to long-term price might be falling.

NEWSMAX reports that in A.D. 2012, America’s largest investment bank (JPMorgan Chase & Co.) held 5 million ounces of silver. Today, JPM holds a staggering 91.5 million ounces of silver! In just 5 years, JPM increased their stockpile 1700%.

In the first three months of A.D. 2017, JPM reportedly purchased 9.4 million ounces of silver. That’s an average purchase of over 3 million ounces per month. JPM clearly believes that silver’s price will rise.

“Since A.D. 2000, silver has enjoyed an average annual growth of 10%. Plus, we know that silver can go to $48 per ounce, as it did in 1980 and 2011.”

More, since 2000, silver supplies have been in a deficit every single year. That means the supply of silver has not kept up with the growing demand for over 17 years and is unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. Diminished supplies coupled with growing demand means higher prices.

Financial expert John Rubino believes that silver could exceed $100 per ounce. According to Rubino, the silver market is so small that if even a relatively modest amount of currency (“a few tens of billions of dollars”) flows into the silver market, the price of silver could start jumping by “$5 or $10 per ounce per day”.